Originally Posted by
BrettS
You'll find that all cell phone providers do the same thing, and their reasoning is actually fairly sound. The cost of the Treo is $650 - for new customers or existing customers. To entice people to sign with Cingular they'll give you a discount on the phone, but force you to sign a 2 year contract.
Some of the money you pay Cingular every month goes to cover the cost of your phone... by the end of your two year contract you'll have paid the $150 difference. At that point you'll be elegible for another discounted upgrade and have to sign another two year contract.
Every phone Cingular sells is that way. Take a look at the price tags in the store... the big cheap price is for new customers, or customers that have made it through their two year contract and are elegible for the upgrade. In the fine print you'll see a higher cost for people who want to sign a 1 year contract (because they'll pay less toward the phone during that one year) and an even higher cost for people who are not elegible for an upgrade, or want to buy the phone with no contract.
In short, since you last upgraded your phones in March you haven't finished paying for them yet, so you can't get another discount on a new phone. You'll find that ever Cell phone provider will have the same rules.
I know the business model that the cell phone companies follow. However, I'd argue that I have certainly generated sufficient profit for Cingular to cover the costs of the phones I bought in March. To make matters worse, the company had a mail in rebate on $100 on each phone. I completed the paper work and returned it to the appropriate address. I followed up six to eight weeks later (something like that) and discovered that I wasn't eligible for the rebate. Here's the reasoning. I bought the phones when I was at a conference in New York. (I had forty minutes to kill, so I went into a Cingular store and took care of things there). Because I am resident in CA, I wasn't entitled to the rebate. It took three calls to come to this conclusion. I was able to check with a local Cingular store. They were offering the same rebate ($100) on identical phones to the one I bought. Apparently, Cingular divvies up the country in ways that customers have to understand. I didn't get the rebates.
I'll give an update in a minute as to what happened with my Treo 750 deal.